Religious and Secular America

The more that I think about the changes that have been happening across America, the more the little electoral map keeps popping into my head. Especially the one that has the counties that each candidate won--I know that everyone has seen the map, and that everyone pretty much understands that for the most part, rural, sub and exurban areas voted for Bush, while the urban areas pretty much voted for Kerry. This leads us to a conclusion that is not easily avoided: there are for all intensive purposes, two very different Americas in existence right now. These two different nations are as different as the United States is from Mexico or Canada and just as real. If we think of them as any less than as distinct, separate nations we are only deceiving ourselves into pretending that Blue America still thinks of themselves as Americans, or that they would be proud to call America home. This is also just as true for Red State America; how many Red State parents could imagine not having their four children, suburban home with two car garage and two gas guzzling SUV's in the driveway and their Sunday, Wednesday and only God knows how many other nights they spend at their church or school, "involved in the community." As a member of the Red state, Republican, conservative, right wing or whatever you want to call it, I am interested in discovering what it is to be a member of the Blue state, Democratic, liberal, socialist, marxist, post-modern, post-colonial, post-thought coalition. What is it to be someone who still has their Kerry/Edwards, although more often than not, I usually only see the Kerry bumper stickers, the ones that came out before Kerry had picked a VP. I always try to drive up and stare intimidatingly at these people. I magnanimously removed my Bush/Cheney bumper sticker the day after the election--why taunt these poor souls who are unable to stomach the thought that somewhere, someplace, a tree is being cut down? I almost thought about putting a helpful bumper sticker up, something along these lines:

Election results got you down? Feeling nauseous at the words Fox News? Does the letter W make you want to run right down to the yoga center and do some stretching?
Then why don't you just the fudge out...

Then again, I thought, probably not a good idea to ask them to leave.
Then again, I thought, why not? What essential services and products does blue-state America provide? Any? Let's see, I don't watch television, so that one is off the list. I don't really go to the movies anymore, and if I do, I try really hard only to see movies that I have to see, like Star Wars or Star Trek. Occassionally I'll go, but otherwise, why bother? Let's see, let's see...I consume a lot of written leftist media, but only to maintain my fluency in their chosen dialect, let's call it, pretentious Newspeak, or the language of critical theory. Tish, pishaw and nonsense. But I don't pay for any of that. I'd read the NYT everyday if I didn't have to register. As a matter of fact there are plenty of liberal newspapers that I would every day if I didn't have to register, and the times that I do register I register as Edith Wharton, female aged 108 living in Brooklyn. Or William Henry Harrison aged 119. I bet if the NYT or any other website that required people to check they would find out that there were an awful lot of names and ages and demographic distributions that just didn't make much sense. Most conservative papers don't require you to register. Very interesting.
More to come. Time for bed.